1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for the production of molded meat or meat-like products and more particularly for forming casingless sausages and the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the preparation of meat products such as sausages and the like, it is desirable to keep costs as low as possible. For this reason, skinless products such as sausages and wieners may be preferred to sausages with skins since the cost of applying an edible skin to a sausage can amount to a substantial part of the total manufacturing cost. By "skinless" is meant a product free from an external supporting membrane of collagen or natural gut.
A conventional method of producing skinless products involves the use of a permeable cellulose casing which may be inedible, or at least unacceptable for consumption. This is filled with a meat paste, formed into lengths, and thereafter heat processed to form a heat coagulated protein skin. The meat lengths are then cooled after which the cellulose casing is removed. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,414,707.
Various devices have been proposed for forming and processing sausages and the like without using casings. For example, a formed food batter or emulsion can be shaped and cooked within an elongated tube utilizing end shaping plugs such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,113,890. This requires a continuous inserting of the batter and plugs into the tube and the subsequent removal thereof thus involving tedious manual labor.
Another method of preparing a skinless product without the use of casing is to treat the surface of such product after it has been shaped with a suitable fluid, for example, an edible acid which reacts with protein and precipitates to form a cohesive surface for the sausage paste. U.S. Pat. No. 3,503,756 discloses a process in which a meat emulsion is extruded, and then treated in an acid bath, either before or after cutting into suitable lengths for frankfurters and the like. The treating of the extruded meat does, however, present handling difficulties.
Other suggestions in the art are shown in patents that call for shaping of a batter-like product within a tube or mold and thereafter removing the finally shaped product from the mold. These techniques require complicated apparatus and often include a complex molding structure having various moving parts and multiple components which, at times, must be accurately indexed and aligned with respect to each other.
While there have been numerous attempts to economically and efficiently produce and market casingless sausages and the like, there are still difficulties associated with multiple handlings of the product that need to be refined and ideally eliminated. It is to these improved objectives that the present invention is directed.